Asian Art

Bonhams are to take advantage of Sotheby’s decision to end Japanese sales by recruiting their top specialist and consultant.

But move will fail to curtail smuggling of pre-1911 objects via Hong Kong

Imperial Chinese ceramics and works of art are at the centre of a raging bull market. Auction prices have skyrocketed thanks to fierce competition between Western dealers, collectors and a large body of Asian buyers, many Chinese mainlanders amongst them. With the major Spring sales in China staged during a six-week period from mid-May to early July, ATG brings you a timely lowdown on the auction scenes in Beijing and Shanghai.

Bonhams have joined the push for Middle Eastern business by announcing the opening of a sales office in Dubai with a first auction scheduled for early November.

One of the highlights of the recent Islamic sale series in London was this 2ft 4in (74cm) high, mid-19th century signed white marble bust of Maharajah Duleep Singh by John Gibson RA.

The Asian art juggernaut thunders on with little sign of any slowdown in the market. If anything, the pace seems to be intensifying.

This Chinese turquoise ground ewer, standing just 73/4in (19.7cm) high, belongs to a group of ritual wares specially commissioned by the Qing Court for placement on Buddhist altars. Their function was for ceremonial use in palaces and temples either within the Forbidden Palace or Bishushanzhuang in Chengde.

The hotels of Newbury were full of lovers on Valentine’s Day – lovers of Chinese jade. A packed room and a full bank of telephones were buzzing as Dreweatt Neate sold Chinese jade from the collection of the late June, Lady Horlick, including many pieces acquired from the London trade in the 1960s and 1970s and not seen on the market since then.

Underscoring a strength of demand for rhinoceros horn pieces seen in the recent specialist Asian sales, Chiswick Auctions achieved a house record on July 18 when this rhinoceros horn libation cup carved with carp feeding on a waterlily sold to a Taiwanese dealer at £46,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium). The 18th or possibly 17th century vessel was discovered by auctioneer William Rouse on the sideboard of a modest home in Hanwell, one of West London’s less fashionable suburbs.

A NEW record for Ming porcelain set by a king of Las Vegas provided the headline, but the real story of Christie’s anniversary series in Hong Kong was the rise and rise of Modern and Contemporary Asian art. This relatively new visitor to the global auction market has now eclipsed more traditional collecting disciplines as Christie’s biggest earner in Hong Kong.

The vendor of this handsome Chinese brush pot or bidong did not hold it in high regard. An heirloom from a grandfather who had spent some time in the Far East, the 6in (15.5cm) vessel had been relegated to the potting shed as a useful receptacle for garden tools and potting compost.

The current boom in the market for Chinese Contemporary paintings could hardly be better illustrated than by the way sale statistics have been leapfrogging around the globe in the last couple of weeks.

The enormous potential of the market for contemporary Chinese art was dramatically underlined by almost frenzied scenes at Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) eagerly awaited March 31 Contemporary Art Asia sale in New York.

As ATG went to press, the best-selling work of art in last week’s series of Islamic sales in London was this impressive 16in (40cm) diameter blue and white Iznik pottery dish, right, offered at Christie’s on April 4.

There was high drama at Lyon and Turnbull’s Edinburgh saleroom on March 26 when this celadon moonflask, left, estimated at £2000-3000, shot to a house record £275,000 (plus 19.5/12% buyer’s premium).

It was catalogued simply as “a carved and signed ivory netsuke modeled as a dragon” and estimated at just £200-300, but this 11/2in (4.5cm) netsuke shot to £41,000 (plus 15 per cent premium) at Paul Beighton of Thurcroft, near Rotherham on February 26. Why? The reason was twofold.

There will be a rare chance to glimpse some of the long unseen areas of Beijing’s Forbidden City on November 28, when Henry Tzu Ng of the World Monuments Fund will deliver a lecture at the Royal Academy in conjunction with their forthcoming exhibition – China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795.

Two pieces of Yuan dynasty blue and white porcelain smashed coveted auction records in the UK salerooms last week.

The July sales of Asian art will be notable for bringing two newly discovered pieces to the market, one in London and the other in Salisbury.

Sotheby's New York (20/12% Buyer's Premium) PRICES have steadily risen in recent years for paintings by India’s most established modern artists notably Maqbool Fida Husain (b.1915) and Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002).